Its become increasingly shocking to me how christians and other religious people of similar cloth can look at pictures like this and honestly believe that god created the entire universe not only with them in mind, but specifically for them.

The fact that each of those dots are ENTIRE GALAXIES WITH MILLIONS OF STARS EACH is absolutely mind-boggling.

Logged

"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution."

I thought Hubble's Deepest Field was so mind blowing that I purchased the poster, had it laminated and now it hangs on my wall. A couple of notes: most of the galaxies seen have billions, not millions of stars and the field of view seen is what you would see through a pinhole held at arms length. Pretty amazing huh?

A few of the objects in that photograph are stars, but the rest are galaxies. What I think is cool is that casual enthusiasts like me can look at a photograph like this one, pick a random dot, and say, "I can't tell whether that's one star or one hundred billion."

It would be neat if there were some way you could pay money to officially have a galaxy named after you. With over one hundred billion galaxies known, there are more than enough for everybody to have one. (They used to do this with stars, but it wasn't formally recognized by the astrophysics community.) And they could use the money to fund space research projects, which is increasingly becoming a concern these days.

Logged

[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

It would be neat if there were some way you could pay money to officially have a galaxy named after you. With over one hundred billion galaxies known, there are more than enough for everybody to have one. (They used to do this with stars, but it wasn't formally recognized by the astrophysics community.) And they could use the money to fund space research projects, which is increasingly becoming a concern these days.

Interesting proposition given the context of the OP. Paying to have one's name associated with a tiny speck of light in the night sky might be a fun way to stroke one's vanity, or maybe just a little silly. You would be the only one who cares.

Sam Harris said it best in his Letter to a Christian Nation, although the topic of theist arrogance has come up in the writings of several other staunch proponents of secular reason:

Quote

"Any intellectually honest person will admit that he does not know why the universe exists. Scientists, of course, readily admit their ignorance on this point. Religious believers do not. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be appreciated in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while condemning scientists and other non-believers for their intellectual arrogance. There is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: the creator of the universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell. ...

An average Christian, in an average church, listening to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse—and there have been some extraordinarily arrogant scientists."

Logged

I can live with questions I cannot answer, but I cannot live with questions I cannot ask.

A few of the objects in that photograph are stars, but the rest are galaxies. What I think is cool is that casual enthusiasts like me can look at a photograph like this one, pick a random dot, and say, "I can't tell whether that's one star or one hundred billion."

It would be neat if there were some way you could pay money to officially have a galaxy named after you. With over one hundred billion galaxies known, there are more than enough for everybody to have one. (They used to do this with stars, but it wasn't formally recognized by the astrophysics community.) And they could use the money to fund space research projects, which is increasingly becoming a concern these days.

A good christian would say that the picture is simply god's art on the dome above the heavens. Some of it could be some bubbles in the waters above the dome, perhaps. The stars are simply small sparkles that god hung on the dome just like christmas lights on a tree.

Remember, god warned us that when the end times come, we will have to hide in caves to avoid the stars falling to earth. I guess because you don't want the star sprinkles to get in your hair.

A good christian would say that the picture is simply god's art on the dome above the heavens. Some of it could be some bubbles in the waters above the dome, perhaps. The stars are simply small sparkles that god hung on the dome just like christmas lights on a tree.

Remember, god warned us that when the end times come, we will have to hide in caves to avoid the stars falling to earth. I guess because you don't want the star sprinkles to get in your hair.

Why can't you guys just believe that? Why do you hate god so much?

Oooo! I do hate him. Do this, don't do that? It's a major PITA and a damper on my lifestyle. THAT's why I hate god. He makes things inconvenient and so I pretend he doesn't exist. j/k

The scale and complexity of the universe is my personal go-to argument for the small-mindedness of the theist world view. The trouble is, they don't know or accept the scale and complexity. They turn off their eyes, ears and reason.

Because over the entire 50 years of my life, he has never once bothered to even say hello. The almighty god of the entire universe doesn't have the time or inclination to reveal itself to most humans. It would rather spend it's time speaking through select individuals with pointy hats and robes, and men who use their "holy" position in their societies to abuse innocent children.

He thinks it best to let some parents know that prayer is better than modern medicine, and watches them die needlessly. And he is unable to convince the Muslims that Muhammed was completely wrong. God, in short, is by far the most unbelievably inept entity to ever create our universe, call us his children, and ask us to worship him.

He has tried to kill anyone and everything that ever lived, and made the poorest decisions possible with the very few chosen with whom he had personal conversations. Abraham, Job, Mary (his biggest fuck-up to date). He's like a teenager let loose after years of a strict childhood.

You know, for all of the things that many of us find wonderful,beautiful, and amazing about the universe we find ourselves in, God has done practically nothing to embrace that aspect, and has always chosen to be vindictive, mean, murderous, and misogynistic on a scale too petty to comprehend. God has single-handedly set more humans against each other than any other thing.

Because over the entire 50 years of my life, he has never once bothered to even say hello. The almighty god of the entire universe doesn't have the time or inclination to reveal itself to most humans. It would rather spend it's time speaking through select individuals with pointy hats and robes, and men who use their "holy" position in their societies to abuse innocent children.

He thinks it best to let some parents know that prayer is better than modern medicine, and watches them die needlessly. And he is unable to convince the Muslims that Muhammed was completely wrong. God, in short, is by far the most unbelievably inept entity to ever create our universe, call us his children, and ask us to worship him.

He has tried to kill anyone and everything that ever lived, and made the poorest decisions possible with the very few chosen with whom he had personal conversations. Abraham, Job, Mary (his biggest fuck-up to date). He's like a teenager let loose after years of a strict childhood.

You know, for all of the things that many of us find wonderful,beautiful, and amazing about the universe we find ourselves in, God has done practically nothing to embrace that aspect, and has always chosen to be vindictive, mean, murderous, and misogynistic on a scale too petty to comprehend. God has single-handedly set more humans against each other than any other thing.

In short, God is unworthy of recognition, much less worship.

I thought that those were the very reasons that you were supposed to love God, because you were afraid of his ass.

Logged

The level of dumb they have to sell, is only made remotely possible by the level of flocking their sheep are willing to do in the name of rewards for no thought. quote: Kin Hell

"Faith is the enemy of evidence, for when we know the truth, no faith is required." Graybeard

You assume that your particular ancient holy book is correct, out of the various mythologies and holy books out there.

You assume that it is correct where others are wrong, insofar as these holy books have conflicting cosmologies

You assume because of your cosmology, that you have an understanding what the creator of the universe likes and dislikes.

You assume through this holy book that billions of galaxies were created for the benefit of your species, and that your species is the darling creation of the creator of the universe.

You assume because of this holy book that you do get to live forever.

You assume that those who do not conform to your particular holy book are punished forever.

You assume that the holy book that was popular at the place and time you were born is correct, and everyone else who believes in a holy book that was popular at the place and time they were born in is incorrect.

And you assume all of these things without a shred of evidence.

Yet atheists think they are just a collection of atoms that had the good fortune to become conscious for a few decades.

How are we the arrogant ones?

Logged

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

Another thing that gets me about this kind of thing is how much we've learned about the universe in such a short period of time. It was only a hundred years ago that science even began to suspect that there might be other galaxies besides our own, and now look how many we're aware of.

I've occasionally wondered what it might be like to be able to go back in time to the days of, say, the Great Debate, and show the leading astrophysicists of the time these photographs and other similar data. "You're wondering whether other galaxies exist? You ain't seen nothin' yet!" Couldn't risk going back much further than that, though... the Christians would show their love of knowledge (and their compassion for their fellow human beings) by burning you at the stake.

Logged

[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

In that picture there are millions of galaxies; and in those galaxies are billions of stars; and around those stars are trillions of planets; and on at least one of those planets are billions of people; and, out of all that, the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent god of everything is reportedly most concerned with what some of those people do with their penises.

Its become increasingly shocking to me how christians and other religious people of similar cloth can look at pictures like this and honestly believe that god created the entire universe not only with them in mind, but specifically for them.

The fact that each of those dots are ENTIRE GALAXIES WITH MILLIONS OF STARS EACH is absolutely mind-boggling.

From their point of view (which is idiotic as far as I'm concerned) why should it be so hard for you to believe that they wouldn't be able to think all that was created with just one planet of humans? I had one Xian tell me the reason the universe was created with so much, was so that he would have a lot to explore after death (on a silver surfboard).

Besides, an omnipotent god could create all that without so much as an afterthought, with less effort than a fart takes, so from that perspective it's no big deal. It's simply amazing from our puny human point of view.

You are not very good at understanding xian's ability to rationalize what they see with their belief. That ability is unbounded and immune to your questioning and amazement, such as this thread.

The stars in our galaxy have a line radiating every 90 degrees. I see 2 of them, one in the bottom right and one in the top left.

I thought that was extremely interesting but I can't find any information about that anomoly.Why does that happen?

I'd have to look it up to be sure, but I would assume it's the same kind of phenomenon you get with a camera: if you open the aperture wider to let in more light to see dimmer objects, brighter objects will become even brighter and wash out.

Logged

[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn